


Evolutionary Theory

by Reishiin



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4181937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/pseuds/Reishiin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adapt to live.</p><p>(The time Blue spent at the Masked Man's facility)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evolutionary Theory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [surskitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surskitty/gifts).



 

The Masked Man’s compound was built from the remains an abandoned factory in an industrial wasteland, far away from any inhabited region of Johto. The high gray walls are cold and unyielding, and even out in the open where the seasons change, the barren grounds and the chain-link perimeter fence seem to shut out the sense of time passing.

The Children must never be seen without their masks, even by each other. In the beginning, it had succeeded in its purpose of alienating them from each other: since Blue could not see their expressions, it was difficult to tell what they were thinking, and that had made her uncertain of herself, too. But over time they had gotten used to each other, and Blue came to recognise the atmosphere that settled over the Masked Man’s compound as one of resignation.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When Blue was first brought here, she had cried, and cried, the sound echoing against the inside of the mask over her face, until the tall girl with long blond hair had turned her own masked face toward Blue and said, “Please stop that.” Somehow, those words had made Blue very aware of the feeling of the tears and snot running down her face that made her skin stick to the inside of the mask, and she decided that, yes, she would not cry any more.

 And she did not, when the tall girl left and Blue was alone again in the room with the lights that were too bright. She did not, when the man with the mask returned and then, seemingly deciding on something, brought her to a room he said would be her own, and left her there. She did not cry. She pulled the covers up over her head, and hugged the pillow, and thought very hard about Mum, but her eyes stayed dry.

 

 

 

Blue learned very quickly—to make it down to breakfast on time, to not dawdle on the way to class or training, and to listen to Charmaine and Keane. She saw the tall girl again, and learned that her name was Karen. She met Silver and Will, and realised that from now on, she would recognise people by their height and their hair instead of by their face.

The rest—is not so different from kindergarten. Except that the hours were longer. And, at the end of the day, her parents would not be there to pick her up, and she had to make her own way back to the living quarters. But Charmaine and Keane—and Will and Karen, and Silver, too—would always be there. So, even though she sometimes felt lonely, she was never alone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Blue worked hard, and trained hard. Not out of any particular drive or passion, but just because the training facilities here were top-notch, and she would need these skills when she went out into the world, some day.

When. Not if—when.

In the afternoon, when the sun slanted through the classroom window and made the air so muggy they could hardly breathe— Silver would uselessly kick things, Will would mope, and Karen would try to soothe them. As for Blue, she would pillow her head on her hands, and write down something about the lesson. The videos that played over the projector were always grainy, and although she could make out what the researchers were saying, she could never see their faces.

In the evenings, when they were no longer being watched, Blue would sneak out of the living quarters and back into the main compound. She looked for blind spots in the cameras, took all the wrong turns, and tried all the doors. She diagrammed the entire facility, using pencil stubs and notebook paper she smuggled out of the classrooms, and stowed the sheafs of paper under her mattress at night and in the waistband of her skirt during the day. She followed a little too close behind Keane when he entered the passcodes to the doors.

She used Karen’s credentials to get onto the Johto University servers, and checked the maps of the surrounding area: how far in which direction to the nearest body of water, then the nearest town. She made many plans, and thought of every possible eventuality. She had to know, once she got past that chain-link fence, exactly where she needed to go.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The night she planned to finally leave, Silver caught her sneaking out. Their rooms were right next to each other—he was bound to have noticed. If only it hadn’t been today.

Blue did not know what made her trust him, when she would never have told the truth to Karen or even Will. Maybe it was just that Silver was the only one of them all who was younger than she was, and that he had never made a secret of looking up to her.

She told him, with her heart thudding in her chest, what she was planning to do. He looked at her, and because of the mask, she could not read his expression.

Then he said, “Can I come too?”

She waited in his doorway, counting the seconds, while he collected his pokemon. To take him with her would slow them both considerably, but it would help that he trusted her enough to be willing to go with her plans just like that.

There would be enough time. Not by much, but there probably would be enough. She had walked this route alone, a hundred times over a hundred nights, but still she was afraid.

They crossed the empty courtyard-- their footsteps light, but terrifyingly loud on this night-- to the gap in the chain-link fence on the east side of the compound. They scrambled under it while the cameras were looking the other way.

Blue lifted the mask, and—still clutching Silver’s hand in hers—for the first time, she felt the chill of the night wind on her face.

When she reaches to undo Silver’s mask, too, the tips of her fingers brushed his face, and he flinched away from her touch. It was too dark to see very much, but she could tell that he wasn’t smiling like she was. At first, it disappointed her, but then she decided it wouldn’t have suited him anyway.

It was a cloudy night, so they couldn’t use the stars to get their bearings. But she could see the outline of Mt. Mortar in the distance and the half-moon in the sky, and use that to triangulate first their current location and then their destination, Blackthorn City.

She might not know what awaited them, but she knew where they were going.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 


End file.
